Prof. Raymond Saner Director of Centre for Socio-Eco-Nomic Development

Fishery is an important source of revenue, employment, and foreign exchange for the developing countries. In 2014, value of total trade flow on seafood was estimated over 140 billion USD with Asia as the most important region for fish farming (Rabobank World Seafood Map, 2015). More than 350 million jobs are linked to oceans worldwide. The fisheries sector has also become the most globalized of all food commodity sectors with about one-third of production entering international markets (World Bank, 2014). Yet illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) catches from distant waters compounded with forced labour and human trafficking are causing huge loss of workers’ lives and depriving fundamental human rights of the fishery workers in general and migrant worker in specific.